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But the enemy was now to attempt a much more important step towards opening the navigation of the
Mississippi River--a result persistently demanded by the
Northwestern States as the price of their contributions to the war, and their support of the Administration at
Washington.
The Confederates had been prompt to perceive the great importance of
Vicksburg; and on the fall of New Orleans,
Gen. Lovell had ordered a detail of his force to garrison the place and construct works for its defence.
It was the most important point in the
Valley of the Mississippi. Thousands of men, supplies, and
materiel were continually crossing the river-much of our provisions for the armies in the East and West being derived from
Texas, parts of
Louisiana, and
Arkansas.
Could the
Federals obtain possession of
Vicksburg, all the agricultural products of the
Northern and Western States would pass down unmolested to the
Gulf; the enemy would gain free access to the whole river front, supply themselves abundantly with cotton, sugar, molasses, and other products, disjoin the
east and
west Mississippi States, and, having the
Confederacy fairly on its flanks, could operate with impunity upon numberless points, divide our forces, and open a new prospect of subjugation.
When in the summer of 1862,
Gen. Earl Van Dorn was assigned to the defence of
Vicksburg, he found the city besieged by a powerful fleet of war vessels, and an army.
Many of the citizens retired to the interiour, while the
Confederate troops marched in, and pitched their tents in the valleys and on the hills adjacent in convenient position to support batteries and strike assailants.
Breckinridge's division occupied the city.
Additional guns were brought up from
Mobile, from
Richmond, from
Columbus and elsewhere, and put in battery, preparatory for a grand trial of artillery with the enemy's fleet.
The attacking force of the enemy was at first confined to
Porter's mortar fleet, and
Farragut's gunboats, with their attendant array in transports, which had ascended the river from New Orleans.
The evacuation of
Fort Pillow, and the fall of
Memphis, opened the new danger of a combination between the upper and lower fleets of the enemy.
The junction was effected early in July, and thus a force of more than forty gunboats, mortar-boats, rams and transports lay in menace before the city.
On the 12th of July it opened fire.
While the enemy had been completing his preparations for the bombardment of
Vicksburg, the
Confederates had been engaged in a well-masked enterprise, and
Com. Lynch having improvised a ship-yard near
